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Toasted, the newly opened East Dulwich restaurant from the partnership of chef Michael Hazelwood and manager Alex Thorp, puts wine at the heart of a meal in an especially alluring manner. Some say that service is just as important as food to the enjoyment of a meal. I would make a similar argument for educative, rewarding, benevolently priced drinking.

Bottles decorate the windows of the premises. Three 300-litre stainless steel tanks — the sort you stare at dutifully during the downside of press trips to wineries — filled with wines sourced directly from the makers, dominate one of the dining spaces.

A parade of bottles that turns out to be the booty acquired with the purchase from the previous occupants — the wine bar Green and Blue — line the walls and, with many of the labels water damaged, offers a deal that marries the notion of restaurant to tombola. The main list, with more than 200 bins, has a helpful page extracted showing 20 wines under £30.

Opening somewhere good to eat in East Dulwich — to join Franklins at 157 Lordship Lane and opposite the excellent fish and chip shop The Sea Cow at No 37 — means a grateful population immediately surges in. We had to wait a while for our reserved table but mercifully were directed to the very slightly calmer room, the one with the tanks.

A downloaded decibel app showed the needle hovering in the red — sometimes reaching 101 — for the whole evening. Over 85 decibels — between a boombox and a motorcycle — is apparently damaging.

Loud noise does not equate to a good time being had by all. This element should be addressed and if you think I am being a sour old prune, a younger couple sat down nearby and after a few minutes got up and left.

New Zealand-born Michael Hazelwood, who has cooked in the UK at Soif and The Green Man and French Horn (in the Terroirs group), has devised a menu that is short and to the seasonal point. Only prices indicate the status of dishes and we started by sharing a few of the obviously smaller plates.

Hazel, as the staff referred to him — a name belied by designer stubble and the sort of branded arms that warrior chefs display — brought out exceptionally fine Tuscan salami, fat, wobbly, skinned raw mackerel fillets bathed in white soy and topped with crisp ginger, a sensationally fine heritage tomato salad crocheted together with toasted crumbs, and a wondrous dish of English peas with molten egg yolk, curd and nibbed almonds. On finishing it, we immediately ordered it again.

Bread with a combative crust is baked every morning in the wood-fired oven and butter made in-house from fermented raw cream.

Radishes have had their moment in the sun. Now it is the turn of labneh. Studded with pomegranate seeds it accompanied loin of lamb with fiercely roasted whole carrots. Haddock came with lemon verbena and leeks, pollock with tangled ribbons of courgette and quinoa. A sort of theme emerged of soft backgrounds with crunch in focus, which carried on equally satisfactorily into the dessert of dark chocolate mousse with golden honeycomb.

Menus change daily, free tastings and other events are advertised, wines, including those from the tanks and the bin ends, can be bought for home consumption. Our friend Joe gambled £15 on a Ca Pitti Amarone 1997 with a barely legible label. The nearest valuation I can find online is a Quintarelli Amarone of the same vintage at $425 (about £312). Robert Parker says “Caveat emptor” — but I bet he would have bought it.

My colleague Andrew Neather, far better equipped than me to analyse a wine list, gives his report: “As at Terroirs and other restaurants associated with natural wine importer Les Caves de Pyrene, this predominantly Old World selection is large and leftfield (thus eight pretty obscure Jura wines).

“They aren’t all ‘natural’ but some of these low-intervention, organic wines can annoy: I’ve got little time for ‘orange wines’ like several here. But when the wines are as pure as Clos Fantine Tradition Faugères 2011 (£30), they can be thrilling. Likewise, Loire producer Henri Bourgeois’ Marlborough pinot noir, Petit Clos Cuvée Henri 2011, bursts with fresh, fragrant flavours (£27).

“From the red, white and rosé sold from stainless steel tanks, the Eztézargues co-op’s 2012 red Côtes du Rhône is a warm, spicy bargain at £3 a glass (you can take a refillable bottle home for £5.95). For this is a wine shop too, with a large, wacky selection of bin ends. What the Montus Pacherenc du Vic Bilh 1999 that I took home for £9 will taste like, I’m not sure — but that’s half the fun.”

36-38 Lordship Lane, SE22 8HJ (0208 693 9021, toastdulwich.co.uk). Open Tues-Sat, soon to be 7 days a week, from 8am-10pm. A meal for two with 750ml of wine from a tank, about £82 inc 12.5 per cent service.

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